Stunning pictures that can speak volumes

This year’s best picture books, led by a glorious celebration of National Geographic’s 125th anniversary, remind us of the power of high-class photography, says Katie Law

Thursday 5 December 2013 16:02 BST

B. Anthony Stewart
California, 1965
Coming from the darkness of the Wawona Tunnel, tourists always scramble out of their cars to take in that first stupendous view of the Yosemite Valley. El Capitan soars in granite majesty to the left, distant Half Dome peeks over the shoulder of a rounded ridge, and to the right Bridalveil Fall tumbles in spray for 620 feet beneath Cathedral Rocks.

We’re all keen photographers now, with our smartphone selfies and Instagrammed everything. Except, of course, that we’re not, as this year’s crop of photography books show only too well. Indeed, there’s plenty of evidence here to suggest that the older the pictures, the more interesting they are, taken in an age when the all-about-me culture didn’t have currency.

That’s certainly the case with National Geographic: Around the World in 125 Years (Taschen, £349). It’s the photography book of the year and a towering achievement in every way. In celebration of the magazine’s 125th anniversary, a selection of almost 1,500 images from its archives have been published in a monumental and lavish three-volume limited edition. It covers the Americas and Antarctica, Europe and Africa, then Asia and Oceania. It’s impossible to do them justice here except to say that if you are interested in photography and humanity — and can afford it — this will provide a lifetime’s pleasure.

The other whopper is Genesis by Sebastião Salgado (Taschen, £44.99), which accompanies the exhibition held at the Natural History Museum earlier this year. The Brazilian photojournalist, inspired by having successfully reforested the cattle ranch of his childhood, spent eight years travelling all over the world, taking black-and-white photographs of places and people that haven’t yet been destroyed by modern man. Salgado hopes his pictures will serve as “ a visual ode to the majesty and fragility of Earth… and a warning of all that we risk losing”. Powerful stuff.

For book lovers, Portrait of the Writer: Literary Lives in Focus (Thames & Hudson, £24.95) would make a great present. Here are portraits of 250 writers, from the late 19th century to the present day, taken by photographers great and small. Allen Ginsberg naked in 1963 by Richard Avedon; Irène Némirovsky in 1938 — taken in Paris just four years before she died in Auschwitz, by Albert Harlingue; Guillaume Apollinaire in 1910, by Picasso; Marcel Proust on his deathbed in 1922 by Man Ray.

Then Henry Roth, Joseph Roth and Philip Roth. The portraits are ordered alphabetically and opposite each is a short biography of the writer. But the pictures on the whole speak for themselves.

Hardly a year goes by without a new book about Brassai; this year there are two. Brassai: For the Love of Paris by Agnes de Gouvion Saint-Cyr (Flammarion, £32) gives us the Hungarian’s adopted city in themed chapters, starting with The Paris of Marcel Proust and ending with Eternal Paris: The Paris of the Flâneur. The most interesting is The Walls of Paris: Graffiti. Under Brassai’s lens, gouged holes, marks and scratches become characterful faces and patterns. Brassai: Paris Nocturne by Sylvie Aubenas and Quentin Bajac (Thames & Hudson, £48) focuses on Brassai’s after-dark pictures, from wet cobblestones to solitary ladies. Looking at them today, you can’t help but be struck by the relative lack of crowds and cars.

Brassai’s influence on the Magnum photographer Sergio Larraín is clear in Vagabond Photographer, edited by Agnes Sire (Thames & Hudson, £60). Larrain’s long shots of pavements, close-ups of prostitutes and children playing on streets and beaches in different parts of the world are a joy to look at. The book also features some of Larraín’s short essays and scribbles on meditation but the intermittent absence of page numbers and caption information can prove frustrating.

London past and present features in several books, including Bert Hardy’s Britain by Colin Wilkinson (Bluecoat, £19.99). Well known as a war photographer, some of Hardy’s greatest appeared in Picture Post, including images of London’s streets in 1940 after Hitler attacked. They capture perfectly the spirit of the people, determined to carry on despite the devastation all around. They make you want to cheer.

The Gentle Author’s London Album (Spitalfields Life Books, £25) is a tremendous mash-up of then and now, from the trade cards and markets of old east London to the chicken shops of today.

But the winner has to be London Zoo: From Old Photographs 1852-1914, self-published by John Edwards (£30), which includes probably the earliest photograph ever taken of a rhino — in 1856 — and shots of the now extinct Tasmanian wolf. Other delights include an ostrich pulling a cart of children, Princess Mary petting a King Penguin and portraits of keepers posing with their pythons and boa constrictors. Those were the days.